The actual number of crimes in Germany committed by migrants in 2015 may exceed 400,000.

The report does not include crime data from North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state in Germany and also the state with the largest number of migrants. North Rhine-Westphalia's biggest city is Cologne, where, on New Year's Eve, hundreds of German women were sexually assaulted by migrants.

"For years the policy has been to leave the [German] population in the dark about the actual crime situation... The citizens are being played for fools. Rather than tell the truth, they [government officials] are evading responsibility and passing blame onto the citizens and the police." — André Schulz, director, Association of Criminal Police, Germany.

10% of the migrants from the chaos in Iraq and Syria have reached Europe so far: "Eight to ten million migrants are still on the way." — Gerd Müller, Development Minister.

Migrants committed 208,344 crimes in 2015, according to a confidential police report that was leaked to the German newspaper, Bild. This figure represents an 80% increase over 2014 and works out to around 570 crimes committed by migrants every day, or 23 crimes each hour, between January and December 2015.

The actual number of migrant crimes is far higher, however, because the report, produced by the Federal Criminal Police Office (Bundeskriminalamt, BKA), includes only crimes that have been solved (aufgeklärten Straftaten). According to Statista, the German statistics agency, on average only around half of all crimes committed in Germany in any given year are solved (Aufklärungsquote). This implies that the actual number of crimes committed by migrants in 2015 may exceed 400,000.

Moreover, the report -- "Crime in the Context of Immigration" (Kriminalität im Kontext von Zuwanderung) -- includes data from only 13 of Germany's 16 federal states.

The report does not include crime data from North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state in Germany and also the state with the largest number of migrants. North Rhine-Westphalia's biggest city is Cologne, where, on New Year's Eve, hundreds of German women were sexually assaulted by migrants. It is not yet clear why those crimes were not included in the report.

The report also lacks crime data from Hamburg, the second-largest city in Germany, and Bremen, the second most populous city in Northern Germany.

Further, many crimes are simply not reported or are deliberately overlooked: political leaders across Germany have ordered police to turn a blind eye to crimes perpetrated by migrants, apparently to avoid fueling anti-immigration sentiments.

Most of the migrant crimes involved theft (Diebstahl): 85,035 incidents in 2015, nearly twice as many as in 2014 (44,793). Those were followed by property and forgery crimes (Vermögens- und Fälschungsdelikte): 52,167 incidents in 2015.

In addition, in 2015, migrants were involved in 36,010 reported cases of assault, battery and robbery (Rohheitsdelikte: Körperverletzung, Raub, räuberische Erpressung), roughly twice as many as in 2014 (18,678). There were also, in 2015, 28,712 reported incidents of fare evasion on public transportation (Beförderungserschleichung).

There were 1,688 reported sexual assaults against women and children, including 458 rapes or acts of sexual coercion (Vergewaltigungen oder sexuelle Nötigungshandlungen).

According to the report, migrants were accused of 240 attempted murders (Totschlagsversuch), in 2015, compared to 127 in 2014. In two-thirds of the cases, the perpetrators and victims were of the same nationality. There were 28 actual murders: migrants killed 27 other migrants, as well as one German.

Finally, the report said that 266 individuals were suspected of being jihadists posing as migrants; 80 of these were determined not to be jihadists; 186 cases are still being investigated. The infiltration of jihadists into the country, according to the report, is "a growing trend."

The report leaves far more questions than answers. It remains unclear, for example, how German police define the term "migrant" (Zuwanderer) when compiling crime statistics. Does this term refer only to those migrants who arrived in Germany in 2015, or to anyone with a migrant background?

If the report refers only to recently arrived migrants -- Germany received just over one million migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East in 2015 -- this would imply that at least 20% of the migrants who arrived in Germany in 2015 are criminals. But if the number of crimes committed by migrants is actually twice as high as the report states, then at least 40% of newly arrived migrants are criminals. Yet the report asserts: "The vast majority of asylum seekers are not involved in criminal activity."

Also, for reasons that are not given, the report fails to include offenses committed by North Africans, long known to be responsible for an increase in crimes in cities and towns across Germany.

Police in Bremen, Germany are shown detaining four young North African criminals who have been terrorizing local shopkeepers. (Image source: ARD video screenshot)

In Hamburg, police say they are helpless to confront a spike in crimes committed by young North African migrants. Hamburg is now home to more than 1,000 so-called unaccompanied minor migrants (minderjährige unbegleitete Flüchtlinge, MUFL), most of whom live on the streets and apparently engage in all manner of criminal acts.

A confidential report, leaked to Die Welt, reveals that Hamburg police have effectively capitulated to the migrant youths, who outnumber and overwhelm them. The document states:

"Even the smallest issue can quickly lead to aggressive offensive and defensive behavior. The youths come together in groups to stand up for each other and also to fight each other...

"When dealing with others, the youths are often irreverent and show a lack of respect for local values ​​and norms. The youths congregate mainly in the downtown area, where they can be seen almost every day. During the daytime, they hang out mostly in the St. George district, but in the evenings they carry out their activities in the Binnenalster, Flora- and Sternschanzenpark and St. Pauli [all across central Hamburg]. They usually appear in groups; up to 30 youths have been observed on weekend nights in St. Pauli. The behavior of these highly delinquent youths towards police officers can be characterized as aggressive, disrespectful and condescending. They are signaling that they are indifferent to police measures...

"The youths quickly become conspicuous, mainly in the domains of pickpocketing or street robbery. They also break into homes and vehicles, but the crimes are often reported as trespassing or vandalism because the youths are just looking for a place to sleep. Shoplifting for obtaining food is commonplace. When they are arrested, they resist and assault [the police officers]. The youths have no respect for state institutions."

The paper reports that German authorities are reluctant to deport the youths back to their countries of origin because they are minors. As a result, as more unaccompanied minors arrive in Hamburg each day, the crime problem not only persists, but continues to grow.

Meanwhile, in a bid to save the city's tourism industry, Hamburg police have launched a crackdown on purse-snatchers. More than 20,000 purses -- roughly 55 a day -- are stolen in the city each year. According to Norman Großmann, the director of the federal police inspector's office in Hamburg, 90% of the purses are stolen by males between the ages of 20 and 30 who come from North Africa or the Balkans.

In Stuttgart, police are fighting a losing battle against migrant gangs from North Africa who are dedicated to the fine art of pickpocketing.

In Dresden, migrants from Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia have effectively taken control over the iconic Wiener Platz, a large public square in front of the central train station. There they sell drugs and pickpocket passersby, usually with impunity. Police raids on the square have become a game of "whack-a-mole," with a never-ending number of migrants replacing those who have been arrested.

German authorities have repeatedly been accused of underreporting the true scale of the crime problem in the country. For example, up to 90% of the sex crimes committed in Germany in 2014 do not appear in the official statistics, according to the head of the Association of Criminal Police (Bund Deutscher Kriminalbeamter, BDK), André Schulz. He said:

"For years the policy has been to leave the [German] population in the dark about the actual crime situation... The citizens are being played for fools. Rather than tell the truth, they [government officials] are evading responsibility and passing blame onto the citizens and the police."

In an apparent effort to defuse escalating political tensions, Germany's Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge, BAMF) on February 16 said it was expecting only 500,000 new migrants to arrive in the country in 2016. In December 2015, however, BAMF director Frank-Jürgen Weise toldBild that "this figure [500,000] is only being used for 'resource planning' because at this time we cannot say how many people will come in 2016."

On January 1, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimated that 1.3 million asylum seekers would enter the European Union annually during 2016 and 2017.

In a January 9 interview with Bild, Development Minister Gerd Müller warned that the biggest refugee movements to Europe are still to come. He said that only 10% of the migrants from the chaos in Iraq and Syria have reached Europe so far: "Eight to ten million migrants are still on the way."

Adding to the uncertainty: On February 18, senior security officials from Austria, Croatia, Macedonia, Serbia and Slovenia — all countries along the so-called Balkan Route, which hundreds of thousands of migrants are using to enter the European Union — agreed to coordinate the joint transport of migrants from the Macedonia-Greece border all the way to Austria, from where they will be sent to Germany.

Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-basedGatestone Institute. He is also Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him onFacebook and onTwitter. His first book,Global Fire, will be out in 2016.

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17 Reader Comments

KLD • Feb 25, 2016 at 19:19

If the neighbors of Germany are sending immigrants to the open arms of Merkel and company, it is already over for Germany. She, of course, will keep denying this but now that her policies are starting to affect tourism, perhaps she will finally admit this was all a mistake. Germany is going broke as we speak and with the potential for 8 to 10 million more immigrants (many of whom are freeloaders and criminals) on the way, Germany is done. Attention all potential tourists... You might want to change your vacation plans. I hear Iceland is a nice place to visit.

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E F • Feb 25, 2016 at 02:26

How can this surprise anyone? Failure to stop this influx will destroy Europe as a whole.

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TRNobre • Feb 24, 2016 at 14:38

What are German people waiting for? If the government is complacent and is blind and deaf concerning to all these problems? I believe that German people should go to the streets and ask: STOP IMMIGRATION, and the same law should be applied to everyone who goes to your country. If Germany spent decades to reach its great development, now, just in few years, offenders, thieves etc, will destroy this great country. Wake up, German people!I believe that madam Angela Merkel should invite each one who commits crime to her house!

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Hungpot TRNobre • May 20, 2016 at 08:28

For all of you who are wondering what is happening here, I think I can give you the answer, or at least part of the answer.

We have all been indoctrinated to feel guilty. But not guilty in such a way that we know something really bad happened, but in such a way, that we felt bad about our country. We did not dare to be proud of it, because of WW2.

This caused a REALLY strong Left during the 60's and 70's with likely good intentions, but this hinders the whole country to have an honest discussion about who we want to let live in our country. I do not know ANY German (and I know a lot:)) who do not like Brits, French, Swedes, Americans or whatever. But almost everyone is afraid of Muslims.

All this is just about to change. I feel hope, when looking to Austria, who will most likely vote a far right chancellor in the next elections. I hope it's not too late though.

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Jean le Baptiste • Feb 23, 2016 at 20:42

Has anyone really gotten to the bottom of why these migrants are being allowed into Europe in such massive numbers? I cannot believe this is being done purely for "humanitarian" reasons. There has to be a group of people benefiting from this nation-destroying process.

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Jaladhi Jean le Baptiste • Feb 24, 2016 at 14:01

This is not migration - it is invasion, hijrah! The West just does not understand Muslim mind and they stay in their delusional world of doing humanitarian help to the fellow human beings. The question to ask is if Muslims will do the same to Christians/Hindus/Jews if the situation was reversed. I think not!

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dm Jaladhi • Mar 3, 2016 at 04:24

You have it in a nutshell. If one is an infidel, it is highly unlikely that any consideration would be given. If we look at the Arab countries that are taking in refugees, their own people ! which is nil, that gives you the answer.

This is history repeating itself, ie the earlier marauding hoards who tore their way through the world murdering and raping.

Pity more people do not read their history books.

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Don • Feb 22, 2016 at 00:38

I'm a left-leaning American, a fan of Bernie Sanders. However, I'm also a resident of Germany and as such have to say that I'm glad the truth of what is going on here with the migrant crisis is finally coming to light. The suppression of news and the rosy pro-Merkel puff pieces have gone on long enough. Thanks for this article.

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German Resistance Don • May 20, 2016 at 08:10

I am a German citizen and I loved my country as it was back in the 80s or 90s. The article is not at all a surprise to me. If anything, I assumed that long before. This became apparent the last 15 years. We first had problems with the Turks. Then with Lebanese, with the Moroccans, and so on. It became worse and worse.

Despite that, we do not have any problems with any other foreigners like Swedes, Poles, US-citizens, Brits, Italians, Japanese, Russians, Chinese, Czechs, Hungarians and so on, and so on.

Only from Muslim countries the people are so different to our own idea of living together. Of course there are exceptions, but we must face the truth now, and react properly.

This has to stop! Now! Else I do not see a positive future for my 1,5 year old blonde son.

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David B. • Feb 21, 2016 at 17:54

My wife and I have been frequent visitors of this region of Europe over the past decade. Reports like this give us serious pause as to to whether we want to go there only to be harassed and threatened by these criminal elements. We want Europe, not Eurabia!

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WindyGirl • Feb 21, 2016 at 12:07

You'd think a rational government would look to France to see the way migrants affect a country, but noooooooo! Germany, in all her hubris, assumed the migrants would behave in their country! But... noooooooo! In an effort to hold onto their beloved migrants because - again in all her hubris - Germany assumes the migrants will actually work for a living! However, nooooooo! These leaches are not designed to be productive, but to be criminal.

I'm not saying all Africans (for instance) in reference to the:

"Even the smallest issue can quickly lead to aggressive offensive and defensive behavior. The youths come together in groups to stand up for each other and also to fight each other..." blah, blah, blah SAME THING IS HAPPENING HERE IN THE US with our lower class African "Americans" - the exact same attitude and criminality.

What? You say? There's a difference in classes among AAs? Yes, there are, just as there is a difference among whites. But there is a difference in their attitudes toward authority. It does not bode well for Germany because it looks like they aren't inclined to imprison their criminals. With Obama in office, there is the same policy of letting prisoners off scot-free and bemoan blacks in prisons because we all know they didn't commit the crimes of which they were convicted.

In short, we need Donald Trump in office to reverse this trend of this toxic avoidance of responsibility, of political correctness run amok. No other political candidate running for the office of president is independent enough of the political machine to set this nation right. None of the other candidates, whether Republican or Democrat, are anything but shades of political machine gray. They are all of them bought and paid for by the true operators of this country. It is time to take our country back and Trump is the start. As Obama has empowered criminal America, Trump will empower the citizen poltician who will step up and run this country the way it was meant to be: a temporary public service and not a career (in my opinion).

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Domus Canus WindyGirl • Feb 24, 2016 at 01:09

There is zero chance I will vacation in Germany for the foreseeable future, and apparently my friends and associates feel the same way so a huge fiscal loss is coming down the tracks for the German economy. By her actions, Frau Merkel hasn't only endangered German citizens with the insanity of her policies, but all of Europe because in time they will be given papers that will allow them to wander all over the continent and terrorize people. These people come from countries of the third world, do not speak the language, parents cannot control their male offspring, their demands are sickening, they bring trouble and problems wherever they go and we cannot tolerate this destructive behaviour. The people of Europe are fairly decent people: until they're not. They have built good societies through the years for their people and the blueprint was available to the third world to copy it, free of charge, but they choose to continue to live in the 7th century and sit in squalor, much easier to invade someone's country without ever having worked for the benefits they now receive from us. When Merkel invited these people in, did anyone really believe they would be model citizens for the future, or would they continue with their criminal behaviour as they did in their failed societies? We have now reached the final straw, the people of Europe will eventually turn of them and no one can say they weren't told of this impending disaster. Vacation in Germany? I think not.

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Liz Wagner • Feb 21, 2016 at 11:53

We read about what's happening in Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, France, England, etc. Here, in the U.S., the Obama administration committed to bringing 100,000 Syrians (at least, that is what we're told). No doubt, we'll see the pace pick up—unless Donald Trump wins the election. No one else is willing to put all Muslim immigration on hold, so the issue can be analyzed, without growing bigger while we examine it.

The big question is why would Western governments allow this to happen? Either they've all gone mad at once, or someone, or something, more powerful than all of Western civilization is forcing this upon us.

Did Bat Ye'Or already give us the answer, or is there something more we need to know to answer this question?

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Stu • Feb 21, 2016 at 10:31

It may well be that the only tourists soon to be seen in many of these once great cities will be the people committing these crimes.
Pickpocketing sounds more much more benign than it is in reality. Losing ones money, bank cards, phone and possibly passport whilst relaxing on a holiday is far from an ideal situation. The trouble in replacing such items can be a traumatic and costly experience in itself.
If the mayors and councils want people to travel to their cities for anything other than business, then they need to ensure that this phenomenon is not present by removing the cause. This is clearly a very difficult job due to the reasons mentioned in the article.
I feel that this will cost the people of Germany dearly in time. Spending your holiday avoiding anybody who looks like a potential threat will wear thin very quickly.

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Abijahn • Feb 21, 2016 at 09:42

The German govt by not taking on these criminals leaves the average German citizen with no choice except to protect themselves. I would bet money that at some point German citizens turn on the refugees and it isn't going to be pretty. Already I think about 1/3 of Germans believe that refugees should be shot at the border. Islam will never assimilate into German society and the reason is that Islam is totalitarian theocracy with its own laws, govt, and religion.

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Jeff Page • Feb 21, 2016 at 07:06

I wonder if I were to travel to Germany and commit criminal offences I would be deported from the country after being brought before a court and found to be guilty? Of course I would! I'm British!

In the same vein, any German caught and charged for theft, rape, burglary, or any other crime would have the book thrown at them, and yet the lilly livered authorities in the various German states are refusing to arrest offenders if they happen to be immigrants! What a ridiculous position to be in, when the police cannot protect their own citizens simply because they have had orders from on high (Angela Merkel)! Talk about a death wish, it seems that most European politicians are travelling down the same route towards the destruction of their countries. Silly, foolish, misguided people. And to think that the PM of Britain (David Cameron) has come back from Europe with a half baked, apparently "Good Deal" for the country.

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Michael Waugh • Feb 21, 2016 at 05:54

Everyone I know anticipated this disaster last Autumn when Merkal welcomed them all in. Even her colleagues thinks she was wrong; what does she know about immigration? Then she tells EU countries they must all accept their share of these people! Why? How many Africans yet to come when the weather improves?

Dr. Shakil Afridi, a Pakistani physician who helped the U.S. locate Osama bin Laden, has been in jail in Pakistan since he was arrested days after the raid on bin Laden's compound in 2011. In 2013, he was granted a retrial, with a new charge that appears politically motivated: charged with murder in regard to the death, eight years earlier, of a patient he had treated. Afridi has gone on a hunger strike protest his unspeakable prison conditions -- including torture. His former lawyer, Samiullah Khan Afridi, was murdered by the Taliban in March 2015. The Obama Administration appears to have abandoned him.